Flying ‘kites of hope’ for Pakistan’s missing children

The recent surge in kidnappings has parents deeply worried in Pakistan.
As of July this year, there were 680 cases of child abductions in the city of Karachi alone.
A flawed legal system that benefits organized crime is one of the key challenges to solv

Senin, 17 Okt 2016 11:38 WIB

60-year-old Ameeran Bibi holding kite with photo of her grand daughter Rafia who went missing in September 2014 (Photo: Naeem Sahoutara)

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The
recent surge in kidnappings has parents deeply worried in Pakistan.

As of
July this year, there were 680 cases of child abductions in the city of Karachi
alone.

A
flawed legal system that benefits organized crime is one of the key challenges
to solving the problem, say activists.

Naeem
Sahoutara has this story.

It’s a sunny Sunday
morning in Karachi and the Pavilion End Club is buzzing with families.

Some are with their
children, and others are holding kites that have photos of their children
printed on them.

Asghar Wahid is one
of them.

The 25-year-old
computer engineer has never been fond of flying kites, but today he is honoring
the memory of his missing niece, Rafia.

“She was just two
years old when she was kidnapped in September of 2014. It’s been two years now.
She must be four years old now,” Wahid said.

Rafia went missing
before her third birthday.

It’s been a
horrible time for the family, says Asghar.

“The girl’s mother has become a psych patient
to some extent. Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night, shouts the
name of her daughter, cries and does odd things. The parents are always scared
to think about what is happening to her,” Asghar revealed.

Rafia is among
hundreds of children, who go missing mysteriously across the country every
year.

The victims come
from different age groups – from newborns to teenagers.

Today, their
parents are flying ‘Kites of Hope’, hoping one to be reunited with their
children.

“He had his
breakfast, changed his clothes, cleaned the stairs as usual and left home
smiling. What can I say? I don’t know where is my son and in what condition he
is in,” Rashid said.

Pakistan is a
signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC).

But, violence
against children is rampant.

In the city of
Karachi alone, more than 2,160 cases of child abductions or kidnapping were
reported in 2015, according to the NGO, Roshi Helpline.

Muhammad Ali, the
president of the group, says the motives are varied.

“If you see the
cluster of child exploitation, the core issue is of missing children. A person
below 18, who is not in contact with his or her parents falls into the category
of missing. Now, what can happen to such children is they may have drowned,
they might have been kidnapped, picked up for sexual assault or trafficking
abroad,” Ali explained.

Despite law against
the abuse of children, Ali says many of the missing children end up as beggars
or being sexually exploited.

“If the child falls
under the age group of ten years and if it’s a girl, what’s been our
experience, is there is a chance she could be kidnapped for sexual assault, and
a boy could also be used for the same reason, or for begging,” Ali says.

“Their identity is
changed by the mafia of beggars, which operates all over the country in an
organized manner.”

In the eastern
province of Punjab the national media reports kidnappings of minors almost
every day. So, I traveled to the provincial capital of Lahore to find out
what’s going on.

It was there that I
met the panicked mother of two, Syeda Fatima.

“I spend the whole
day worried until my children return home from school. Reports that children
are being kidnapped to smuggle out their organs is definitely worrying,” Fatima
told me.

“We even went to
the school to see what kind of security measures they have. While armed guards
are deployed, there are rumors that children riding as passengers on motorbikes
are being taken, so we send them to school in a closed vehicle,” Fatima
explained.

Rights groups say
the rate of kidnappings in Punjab is even higher than in Karachi because Punjab
is highly populated, and law enforcement on the issue is weak.

The steep rise in
incidents has caught the attention of the Pakistani Supreme Court, which has
called for extra security measures to keep children safe, such as employing
armed guards at schools in the province.

But Waseem Abbas,
the spokesman for the Punjab Children Protection Bureau, says much of the
reports are simply media hype.

“In up to 90
percent of cases of children reported missing or kidnapped, they have been
recovered. Now, there are hardly 17 genuine cases. So, it’s not like a jungle in
Lahore. A month ago, the news channels and newspapers were flooded with such
reports, but today there is only one such news in a newspaper. So a hype was
deliberately created,” says Abbas.

But these words do
little to calm the fears of mother mothers like Syeda Fatima. These days Fatima
says, she has even stopped taking her children to the park in fear they might
be kidnapped.